Analysis of proteinic profile in oral lichen planus

Objetives: To describe and compare the protein profiles of tissue, serum and saliva from a patient who presented a typical case of oral lichen planus and from healthy controls. Methods: We first analyzed the histological characteristics of a patient’s tissue sample with a typical case of oral lichen planus. Protein profiles obtained from oral mucosa tissue, serum and saliva were analyzed using two-dimensional (2-D) electrophoresis and further compared with similar samples obtained from healthy controls. Results: (2-D) protein profiles consisted of a total of 228 spots in the pathological tissue, 206 spots in the pathological saliva and 216 spots in pathological serum. We observed several differentially expressed proteins in the sample of the oral lichen planus in comparison to normal samples. Among these proteins, the precursor of fibrinogen and the salivary amylase were identified by mass spectrometry. Conclusions: We detected several differential expressed proteins in oral lichen planus in comparison to healthy samples. Although this work shows experiments of a patient versus samples of saliva and serum from their healthy controls, it could represent the future to find biomarkers in this setting and possibly any diseases. Finally, In the future will be necessary to make more experiments and identify other differentially expressed proteins in order to detect biomarkers of this disease.